


burnout

by falterth



Category: Naruto
Genre: . . . of sorts, Angst, Fix-it fic, Found Family, Gen, Homophobia, Nonbinary Character, OC-heavy, Original Uchiha Characters, Post-Uchiha Massacre, Trans Male Character, Transphobia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-07
Updated: 2018-09-15
Packaged: 2019-06-06 18:22:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15200702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/falterth/pseuds/falterth
Summary: When Sasuke wakes up for the first time after the Uchiha Massacre, there are Uchiha at his bedside.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> OCTOBER 28, 2018: lesbiankankuro is no longer an author of the fic due to motivational problems. Thank you for reading! chapters one and two will be undergoing heavy editing.
> 
> NOVEMBER 3, 2018: chapters one and two have been edited and updated.
> 
> APRIL 21, 2019: chapter two has been heavily edited and updated. again. scenes have changed, and more was added.
> 
> Warnings for the fic: mentions of death, mentions of suicide, transphobia, homophobia, dissociation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> on narutopedia, it says shisui was able to "erase his existence, leaving no corpse behind." i'm throwing that little piece of canon away. bye bye :)

When Sasuke wakes up, he thinks he is the last of the Uchiha. He remembers the sight of people in the streets, remembers the smell of hot blood on his skin, and remembers the feeling of seeing Itachi standing over his parents’ dead bodies coming like a punch to the gut. He remembers seeing everyone out there after it happened—ANBU had been dragging their bodies out of their houses so they could all be identified. He’d seen the corpses of children younger than he is being pulled out of their homes and propped up against the bodies of their parents.

So he wakes up, and he thinks he is the last Uchiha. He’s wrong.

Sasuke stares at the five Uchiha clansmen—and they have to be Uchiha because hardly anyone else in Konoha has the coloring or the features—surrounding his hospital bed. Only one of them is awake. Her face is turned away from him. She’s watching the door.

He tries to blink away his sleepiness. He must be dreaming. Itachi killed everyone—Sasuke had seen it. He had seen everyone out there. They’d grabbed him after the rest of the house had been cleared. Nobody had thought to double-check at first, he guesses, because he’d been cowering under the bed trying to forget the images Itachi showed him when they’d found him toward the end of the cleanup.

He tries to sit up, moving his arms in a weak attempt to support himself. He doesn’t mean to make noise, but the sheets rustle loudly and the woman starts and turns toward him. She’s got a look of surprise and maybe something like fear on her face, but everything relaxes after she studies Sasuke’s face for a few seconds.

Sasuke’s not sure what’s so interesting about his face. He’s not sure who the strangers in his room are. He’s not really sure he’s even awake. There’s an empty chair next to one of the sleeping Uchiha. He wonders why he didn’t notice that before—if the situation had been different he’s certain he would have seen it. Sasuke blinks and even that feels odd. His limbs feel shaky and light like the next summer wind could blow him away. Assuming it’s summer. He’s not sure how long he was out but Mother and Father had told him genjutsu can be extremely damaging to the mind.

Sasuke jumps when the woman taps the metal railing on the bed. He’d been staring in her direction but his eyes hadn’t been focused. He makes himself look at her through the empty haze in his mind.

She smiles, although the expression doesn’t really look right on her face, and leans forward. She takes a deep breath—maybe she’s trying to calm herself—and says, “Hello, Sasuke. My name is Uchiha Jitsuko. How are you feeling?” She shoves the arm of one of the two guys in the room. “Hey,” she orders. “Go get a glass of water for the kid.”

The man gives her a sour expression before he turns to smile and wave at Sasuke. “Hey, Sasuke. Glad to see you awake.”

“Thanks. I don’t know,” he says. His head’s swimming. Itachi killed everyone. It had been undeniable to him. But there are people who claim to be Uchiha sitting in a ring around his bed, so he must have missed some.

The door opens and closes. Sasuke looks toward it, expecting someone new, but it’s just the man leaving. Jitsuko sits silently with her hands folded in her lap until he returns with a glass of water and hands it to Sasuke. He looks similar to Jitsuko. Sasuke wonders if they could be closely related. Siblings maybe, or cousins.

“I was out of the village on a long-term mission,” Jitsuko explains. “You probably don’t remember me, but there’s another woman here you might know. I think she’s off yelling at the Hokage right now. She’s always had a weird insubordinate streak in her . . . Well, anyway, this guy is Kanehisa. He’s my little brother.”

“Older by five minutes,” Kanehisa clarifies. Sasuke tries not to feel lost in the conversation. “She tries to play up the age difference. And my stupidity. Hey, Eikichi! Wake up. Sasuke came to.”

Whoever he’s trying to wake up doesn’t stir. Sasuke waits for something to happen. Kanehisa delivers by way of a solid punch to the last guy sitting on Sasuke’s left.

The Uchiha jumps out of his seat. “Hey! Oh, Sasuke. Good to see you’re awake.” He turns toward Kanehisa and gives him an exasperated look. “Did you have to punch me?”

“Sorry,” Kanehisa says. Sasuke scrutinizes him. He doesn’t look very sorry at all. “Work on waking everyone else up. Sasuke?”

Sasuke stares at Kanehisa, waiting for him to talk, until he realizes he’s supposed to respond. “Yes?”

“We’re here to answer any questions you may have regarding the . . . they’re calling it the Uchiha Massacre. You don’t have to use that name around us. We’ll know what you’re talking about. 

Jitsuko frowns.

Sasuke flinches. He wants to think about it but he can’t, not really. It’s like he’s watching through a haze of cotton. The memories of the dead on the streets flicker through his mind. He can’t bring himself to care. He knew some of those people—an aunt here and there, a cousin in the other house—it’s distant. Sasuke breathes but his lungs don’t fill up all the way. Maybe there’s cotton in them too. He takes another deep breath until his lungs hurt from the effort.

“Are you okay?” Jitsuko asks him. 

Her voice is there right next to his ears but it’s hard for him to focus enough to answer here. Yes is just around the corner. He can feel it on his lips but the word dies before it can reach the open air. Sasuke shrugs. Hospitals make him uneasy. He’s only been here to visit hurt family members. His great-uncle Hide had died here. He’d watched his uncle take those last few breaths. Hide had been old but he’d died to an infection in his intestines instead of old age. He’d died while Sasuke had been sitting in the hospital chair. One moment he was alive and the next he was dead. There’s cotton in Sasuke’s lungs and he takes another deep breath.

He doesn’t want to talk about it here. He’d rather go home but home is where it happened.

Kanehisa shifts his feet and calls out to the other two, kicking the legs of their chairs as he does, “Kensei, Yae, get up and meet the kid!”

Kensei, a tall-looking woman with lighter eyes than most Uchiha, and Yae, whose hair falls down to their waist, are both immediately awake and aware.

“Sasuke,” Yae says, and nods.

“Sasuke-kun,” Kensei says. She stands up. “It’s nice to see you. Ran will be here in a few minutes. And don’t worry about Yae. They’re not very talkative on their best days. At least, not to non-Uchiha.”

A few seconds later, before Sasuke can decide whether he wants to respond or not, the door slams open. He flinches. “Sasuke!”

The voice is familiar to him. He’s reminded of quiet nights spent with a storybook, cool evenings with a bowl of rice and soup and her sitting next to him ruffling his hair. She had been there whenever Sasuke’s parents had been on missions. A babysitter, she’d introduced herself as, but to Sasuke she’d been a friend, a flicker of warmth. He was only three when she’d stopped visiting but he remembers her laughter. 

“Ran?” he asks. It’s hard to get the words out, like he’s talking through water. 

“You remember me!” Ran says. Her grin is all teeth, just like Sasuke remembers. He’s about to ask her where she’s been when the smile melts off her face, giving way to a more serious expression. “We were on a mission. Nobody was allowed to talk about us, so I doubt you were told anything at all. Sorry. But I'm back!” She smiles again, though it feels a bit forced this time, and plops down in the closest seat to Sasuke. “Are you feeling alright? Need us to fetch you a nurse? Or just Kanehisa, if you're more comfortable with an Uchiha.”

Sasuke shrugs. He doesn’t care who sees to him as long as they don’t touch his eyes.

A brother reaching toward his face—his mother and father slumped on the ground— _ painpainpain. _

He takes a ragged breath in. He doesn’t know what’s happening. Sometimes his mother had gotten like that where she’d started breathing fast and told Sasuke to get his father and his mother is dead and his father will never look at him again and his clan is dead and Itachi killed them all.

Something touches his shoulder and he thinks  _ red-eyes-brother _ before he remembers Itachi had gone away that night. He doesn’t know how long he’s been in the hospital for. He hates it here. He looks over to his right and it’s Ran’s hand hesitantly perched on his shoulder. He can’t make his mouth move to ask her to hug him but he wants her to.

Ran wraps his arms around him and he sags into the touch. Someone else touches his forehead and he jerks back.

“No, Sasuke, it’s Kanehisa, I’m just checking you over—”

“Not my eyes,” he says. It’s quiet. His voice doesn’t work like he wants it to. 

“I know. I won’t touch your eyes,” Kanehisa promises. “Just let me check you out.”

Sasuke screws his eyes shut and lets Kanehisa’s fingers touch his head. They feel cool, minty, and he can see a green glow from beneath his eyelids. So Kanehisa is a medic. He thinks Ran said something about that just now but Sasuke doesn’t really remember and moreover, he doesn’t really want to try to remember.

“He’s having a—” someone hisses. It sounds a little like Yae. “He’s obviously panicking. There shouldn’t be anything wrong with him physically. What he needs now is a therapist.”

“I’m here, Sasuke,” Ran murmurs to him, stroking his hair gently. Tears prick at his eyes. He doesn’t know why they’re doing that. He’s not sad, just scared and detached. He feels like he’s wading through tar. He’s seen tar a few times, usually when people are building houses and need to seal them up. He supposes they won’t be building houses near him for a while now. “I’ve got you, you’re right here in your hospital bed, and we’re gonna go home in a little while. They’ll let you out tomorrow, okay? We’ve got you, I’m right here. We’re your family. We’re gonna take care of you.”

Slowly, slowly, Sasuke comes back to himself. He feels the wrinkles in the crisp hospital sheets first, and he opens his eyes second. Then the smells of the hospital rush back into his nose, antiseptic and something he doesn’t know the name of. 

“Sasuke?” Jitsuko asks hesitantly.

He doesn’t know how he should respond. He doesn’t want to talk. He wants to change the topic, to talk about something, anything except what just happened. Actually, he doesn’t see why he shouldn’t. 

“What did you guys do before you left?” Sasuke asks. He doesn’t know anything about these people. It only makes sense that he does, if they’re really going to take care of him from now on like Ran said they were. “I mean, what were your jobs?”

“Sasuke,” Eikichi starts, but he shuts his mouth and doesn’t say any more.

Jitsuko tries for a smile but it looks a little lopsided. “For a while, Kensei was an officer.”

Kensei smiles back sheepishly, scratching her cheek. “I was a detective before the mission. It was interesting. I was on my way to a promotion, but the thing came up, and, well. Ran and Eikichi were also police. Yae was thinking about becoming one when we returned from the mission . . . ”

“That's really cool. You should do it,” Sasuke says when the silence begins to feel suffocating.

Yae frowns. “I don’t know if they’ll keep the police force. Without the main staff they might just shut it down. Or they’d have to pull people from other departments to work. Are you sure we should—”

Eikichi clears his throat. “Yae. He needs this. I was a patrol officer—one of the ones who watches over the more crime-prone streets to protect civilians. I never got the chance to visit, but I think my little brother Shisui was friends with—with Itachi. D’you know him?”

Sasuke remembers Shisui.

“I remember Shisui,” he says, recalling just weeks before the—before Itachi, flashing lights and police officers and the Hokage himself and dodging the worried calls and reaching arms and attempts to keep him away from Shisui’s body. It had been bloated. He’d been dragged onto the shore. His eyes were missing. He didn’t even look like Shisui anymore—Sasuke wouldn’t have known who it was if they hadn’t kept saying his name over and over again  _ Shisui committed suicide Shisui jumped off the cliff Shisui Shisui Shisui— _

The week before that, the last time Sasuke had seen Shisui, he’d ruffled Sasuke’s hair and told him what a good kid he was. How they would be the most kickass police officers together when Sasuke was old enough. But he’d seen Shisui dead for a few seconds before Mother had snatched him up by the waist and pulled him close to her chest and told him  _ it’s okay to cry he shouldn’t have looked but he looked that’s Shisui it’s going to be okay you can cry if you want to _ and he had cried and his father had rested one big comforting hand on his back and told him  _ go ahead and cry. _

Eikichi looks like he wishes he hadn’t brought it up. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry, Sasuke. I—he . . . he was a good kid, wasn’t he?”

“He’s dead,” Sasuke says. Shisui was always nice to him. He’d mostly spent time with Itachi, but he’d always had kind things to say to Sasuke. Sasuke misses Shisui. Sometimes it feels like he’ll finish training and be frustrated because Itachi’s always going to be better than him, and—and Shisui will be right there telling him to keep his chin up. But Shisui’s dead. He’ll never ruffle Sasuke’s hair again or tell Itachi to just hang out with him more. 

“Sasuke—”

Sasuke doesn’t know if Eikichi knows how Shisui died. Maybe he should say something. He opens his mouth and all that comes out is a weak little croak. He really loved Shisui. He didn’t think too much about it if he could help it. One day Shisui was there and the next he was gone and a week later his body was found in the Naka river.

“I saw his body,” he finally says. “I’m sorry.”

He doesn’t know what he’s apologizing for. Eikichi looks lost. He raises his hand and lowers it again. Clenches his fist. He lost a brother and so did Sasuke. Maybe they can get each other. He hopes so.

“Oh, Sasuke,” Eikichi says. “Don’t be sorry.”

Sasuke waits for someone to say something. The silence is oppressive and makes him want to curl up in a ball and never talk to anyone. He used to be able to do that when he was younger, before he started training. His father had made him stop though. There’s no one here to stop him now but Sasuke remains upright on the bed anyway.

His father is dead. Itachi killed him. Sasuke should hate his brother but he can’t feel anything except  _ whywhywhy. _ He has so many questions running around in his head he doesn’t know if he’ll ever be able to stop wondering. It’s too soon. Everything’s too soon. Sasuke takes a deep breath in and the cotton is back. He wants to go to sleep so he doesn’t have to think but his arms and legs are shaking with restless energy.

“Can I take a walk?” he asks.

Ran sucks a breath in through her teeth and glances at Kanehisa. “Do you think . . . ?”

Kanehisa nods. “He can have a walk through the halls if he needs one. Ran, I think you should take him.”

Ran nods. “Right. Sasuke?”

Sasuke kicks the sheets back—how long has he been out, he wonders for the umpteenth time that day—and Ran lowers the railing so he can clamber out of bed. She sticks out her arm and he stares at it, waiting for Ran to explain, before realizing he’s supposed to grab hold of it in case he falls down. He takes her hand in his and swings his legs over the side of the bed. 

“One, two, three,” Ran counts.

Sasuke stands up and only wobbles a little. “Let’s go,” he says. He can’t wait to get the weird tingly-racing feeling out of his limbs.

*

When Sasuke and Ran come back, Kanehisa is sitting on the edge of his bed, writing—scribbling—in a notepad. Kanehisa mumbles something under his breath. Sasuke can’t quite make out the words.

Then, without looking away from the notepad, he says, “Hi, Sasuke. I convinced the hospital to let me treat you, in case you needed any medical care. But you don’t seem wounded, so don’t worry about that.”

“Okay,” Sasuke says. He doesn’t feel hurt.

There is silence for a few moments until Kanehisa sets the notepad aside. He looks at Sasuke and smiles. “If you’re wondering where everyone else is, they’re out getting stuff done. Shopping, things like that. Yae went to the Uchiha compound. They’re going to oversee cleanup. It’s been a few weeks since—since it happened. 

Sasuke nods. “If—if Yae is going home, does that mean I have to live there?”

“Do you want to live there?” Kanehisa asks, fixing Sasuke in place with his eyes.

Sasuke’s instinctual answer is  _ no of course not, _ but something stops him from just coming out with it. Doesn’t he want to live there? It’s his home. He’s never even thought about living other places. He thinks about what it would be like to live in a compound with six strangers. Is he going to go back into his old house without . . . without his family? Is his mother not going to wake him up in the morning and call him to come eat breakfast? Is his father no longer going to oversee his training?

“Sasuke? Sasuke, are you okay?” Ran asks. 

“I’m fine,” he says thickly, trying not to cry. They’re gone. They’re gone.  _ They’re gone. _ “I wanna live somewhere else.”

_ They’regonethey’regonethey’regonethey— _

Ran touches his shoulder again, hesitantly like she’d done the first time, and when Sasuke doesn’t move because really it feels kind of nice that someone wants to touch him even after he saw his mother and father die and he didn’t die maybe he should have been with them Ran is nice everyone’s nice but it’s not enough never enough why couldn’t it be Mother and Father who were there when he woke up instead of these people who have been gone and they’re alive when everyone else is dead and he doesn’t know them and it isn’t  _ fair. _ Nothing’s fair.

Sasuke tries to rub the tears out of his eyes. More come to replace them. He tries to breathe in but what happens instead is a sob that doesn’t manage to fully escape his throat and it sits there, hard as stone, unforgiving and unmoving as the training posts in the backyard he used to throw kunai at—until he coughs and it dislodges itself. He wants to cry quietly but instead he exhales and it’s more of a scream than a breath pushed out of his lungs. He sounds like a baby and he feels like one too.

Ran catches him when he loses his balance and gently brings him down to the floor. Her arms encircle his shoulders, warm and strong. He doesn’t care enough that she’s not Mother to yank himself away. She’s not soft enough to be his mother and her hair is all wrong and her eyes are too thin but he clings to her for dear life anyway.

“I don’t wanna go home,” he cries. His father scolded him when he cried. His father is dead. Crying is exhausting and Sasuke wants to sleep.

“Then we won’t go home,” Kanehisa promises. 

He’s kneeling on the ground next to Sasuke too, arms hanging by his sides. He looks like he doesn’t know what to do with them. Sasuke wants to tell him to hug him too but the words don’t come out. They spend a while on the floor. Sasuke doesn’t think. He just has his tantrum and by the end of it, when the sobs have tapered off into sniffles, when his nose isn’t so clogged up anymore, he tries to stand.

Ran helps him up. “Steady there,” she says, leading him over to the bed and helping him onto it. He lets himself fall backward onto the mattress.

“Hey, Sasuke?” Kanehisa asks.

“Yes?” Sasuke answers, staring up at the ceiling.

“Did you know you activated your Sharingan?”

“No,” Sasuke says. The Sharingan is the famed dōjutsu of the Uchiha. His father said he expects Sasuke to activate it by the time he graduates from the academy. He’s not around to tell Sasuke anything. Sasuke has the eyes but it cost him his whole clan. He paid a price he didn’t ask to pay. “Should I try to activate them right now?”

“No!” Ran says quickly. “No—no. Your chakra reserves aren’t large enough to support use of your eyes yet. We’ll work on expanding those and then maybe we’ll teach you how to consciously activate them. Of course, we’ll wait on training until you feel like it. Nobody would ever want to force you into it.”

Sasuke nods. He has the Sharingan but it doesn’t feel real, and he has no idea how to channel chakra to his eyes but he’s sure he could figure it out if he really tried hard. “I’m okay with training as soon as I can,” he says, hoping that’s the right answer.

Kanehisa has an odd expression on his face. Sasuke doesn’t really know how to respond, but he feels the need to fill the silence. 

“Do you want to train because you like it?” Kanehisa asks. “Or because people told you it was the right thing to do?”

“I like training,” Sasuke says, rolling over so he can look at Kanehisa without his neck hurting. “It’s really fun. I know how to do the Great Fireball now, and I can throw kunai accurately. And shuriken but I’m not super good at that yet. Itachi always . . . always said I was really good at—at—”

“You don’t have to talk about it, Sasuke,” Ran says, coming into his line of sight and sitting next to Kanehisa in one of the folding chairs. “We understand. Or, if we don’t, we’ll try our best.”

Sasuke closes his mouth and tosses and turns in the hospital bed until he finds something to say. “I’m getting out tomorrow? Where will we go? They can’t make me go back there, right?”

“ . . . I don’t think they can,” Kanehisa says, but he’s slow to say it and his tone is uncertain. “We’ll try out best to keep you out of there. While you were still unconscious, Jitsuko and Kensei went out house-shopping. We were looking into buying one. Hopefully we’ll have it all sorted out by tomorrow, and then we can move the things from your house into the new one.”

Sasuke nods along to his words. “Are Yae and Eikichi coming back soon?”

Ran closes her eyes and her breathing slows down. What’s she doing? Sasuke gives Eikichi a questioning look and he holds his index finger over his lips in a shushing gesture. Ran opens her eyes again after a few seconds and reports, “They’re over near the Uchiha compound. I can sense a cluster of people near them, too. If I had to take a guess I’d say they were chūnin.”

“What was that?” Sasuke asks. Ran almost doesn’t get to finish speaking, but she doesn’t look mad. If anything she looks amused. “Are you a sensor-type?”

“I am,” Ran says, flashing him a smile. Her teeth are almost perfect. Sasuke hasn’t lost all of his baby teeth yet. He hopes his look as good as hers do. Mother’s teeth had always been straight and even, but she’d never smiled with her mouth open. Only small smiles that made Sasuke feel like he was watching something he shouldn’t have been there for. “My range isn’t as crazy as, say, a Hyūga’s, but I’m pretty good.”

Kanehisa laughs. “She’s saved us from a few close calls.”

“There was this one time, back in—wait. Someone’s outside our door,” Ran says.

A moment later, the door slides open, and the Sandaime Hokage pokes his head into the room. Sasuke had always thought the Hokage had to act with dignity. Whenever Sasuke had seen him in public he’d always been wearing his hat and robes and had carried himself with an air of grace that Sasuke has tried and failed to replicate. Now, though, he looks like a grandfather coming to check on a grandson. He’s dressed in a jōnin flak jacket and is wearing his forehead protector on his arm.

“Uchiha,” the Sandaime says. “A moment of your time, if you would.”

“Of course, Hokage-sama,” Kanehisa says, but he sounds worried, and tense, and Ran was relaxed before but now she’s holding herself as still as she had been when she was searching for Yae and Eikichi’s chakra signatures.

“Wonderful mission report,” the Sandaime begins, making his way toward Sasuke’s bedside. “The amount of intelligence you two have gathered is priceless. I regret that the mission had to be cut short, but of course, family always comes first. That being said, Kanehisa, I will need to bring up your paperwork with the council to have it validated.”

Kanehisa takes a deep breath in through his nose and lets it out slowly. Sasuke looks back and forth from the Hokage to Kanehisa. “I already sent all the paperwork through. Kumo documents should work here. They’re still official.”

“Ah,” the Sandaime says. “We’ve developed a policy regarding any official documents from other villages. It’ll need to be checked over by the council before any changes to your name are entered into the system.”

Ran smiles. “I’ve never heard of such a policy, Hokage-sama. I have kept up-to-date on the politics in Konoha. Medical papers shouldn’t need verification. What’s different about this?”

The Sandaime gives her a stern look. “A great many things. As for the policy—it must have escaped your attention. Kana—Kanehisa, come to the Administration Building for an audience at 1800 hours today. We will solve the problem as quickly as we can. And—please inform the rest of your clansmen, Sasuke-kun not included, that we will need to decide on a clan head soon. If you’d listen to this old man’s advice, Yae would do finely in the position—he’s got the level head required for these kinds of things.”

“Hokage-sama,” Kanehisa says, and inclines his head. His expression is strained and Ran doesn’t look much better. “If you would let me have some privacy with my family until then, please, I will happily show up to this meeting.”

The Sandaime nods back, smiles down at Sasuke—Sasuke gives him a hesitant smile in return—and leave the room just as quietly as he’d entered.”

As soon as the door is closed, Kanehisa slumps down in his chair. “They’re going to make this hell for me. Validating documentation, my ass.” He gives Sasuke a look, hesitating, but he talks anyway. Maybe he thinks Sasuke’s trustworthy. “I know things have been tense with Kumo, but at least their government wasn’t so backwards.”

Ran gives him a disapproving look. “I get what you mean, but you should leave talk of Kumo in Kumo. We’re home now. The best thing we can do is deal with it and keep our heads held high. I’m not sure how far the Uchiha’s relations with the village have deteriorated. If it’s like it was when we left, we’ll just have to present a united front. Don’t let them get to you, Kanehisa.”

Kanehisa nods, but he’s looking down at his hands, breathing so evenly Sasuke thinks he must be controlling it on purpose. “I’ve been back for a week and it doesn’t feel real. I—I don’t know. It feels silly to complain this much. I can’t imagine not being around family. I think I’m going to go home and see M—Mom and Dad.”

Should Sasuke do something? Should he reach out and try to comfort Kanehisa? Sasuke stares at Kanehisa until he feels like his eyes are going to fall out of his head, and then he pulls his thin hospital blankets up closer to his chest and decides that he won’t do anything until this is over. He wants to do something but he doesn’t know how to make it better.

He knows, deep down, that Kanehisa and Ran have lost people. That they’ve lost the exact people that he has, lost the home and the dinners and the love and the clan festivals and the happiness. But it feels wrong to see them crying because they’re grown-ups. Mother and Father had been grown-ups, and they’d always been strong around Sasuke. He doesn’t remember them crying or being sad around him, except for when  _ he _ was the one doing things wrong.

It is with great hesitance that he reaches out and slowly wraps his hands around Kanehisa’s. “It’s okay,” Sasuke says, trying to remember the things Ran had told him earlier. “You still have family. I’m here.”

“Thanks, Sasuke,” Kanehisa says, pulling his hands back. “But you don’t need to comfort me.”

“That’s what we’re for,” Ran murmurs, giving Kanehisa a look of vague discontent. “We’ll look out for you. Go ahead and let us do the worrying.”

“I—okay,” Sasuke says. He shifts his legs under the blanket. They’re all tangled up now. “I’m tired.”

“Then get some sleep,” Kanehisa tells him, rolling his eyes. “Kids. They’re all the same.”

Sasuke lies back on the flimsy pillow and closes his eyes. He doesn’t remember exactly when he falls asleep, but when he does it’s to the sound of Kanehisa and Ran bickering over whether which one of them gets the master bedroom in their new house.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you really thought i'd just leave you with one chapter huh. bet disappointment feels great. second chapter is here to stay

As soon as Sasuke is discharged from the hospital, Kanehisa grabs his hand and leads him down a street he’s never been down before.

“Where are we going?” Sasuke asks, struggling to keep up. Kanehisa looks tense. The other five Uchiha have outpaced the both of them already, turning a corner up ahead so Sasuke can’t see them. The longer they walk, the more dread Sasuke feels. Kanehisa isn’t answering him, instead fixing his dark grey eyes on the road. His brow is furrowed and he occasionally flickers his gaze back behind them, as though he’s looking at something only he can see.

“They didn’t investigate you right after the Massacre happened,” Kanehisa finally explains. Sasuke flinches at his flat tone. “So they’re doing it now.”

“So you’re bringing me to T&I?” Sasuke asks. “They’re not going to . . . are they going to torture me?”

“No!” Kanehisa says. His hand tightens around Sasuke’s until it’s borderline painful. Sasuke bites down on a whimper. Kanehisa takes a few quick, shallow breaths, and looks down at Sasuke. He’s smiling but it looks forced. “No, they would never. Not unless you struggled. I think. But you’ll cooperate with them, right? You’re just going to give them answers? You’re not going to balk?”

Sasuke nods. Kanehisa’s being kind of scary right now. If it’ll make him feel better Sasuke will say whatever he needs to. “I’ll tell the truth. Then they’ll leave me alone. You don’t need to worry.”

“Yes. I do need to worry. You’re going to have to tell them everything, even if it’s hard. You can’t—if you can’t tell them everything clearly and truthfully, they might call a Yamanaka in there. Yamanaka can get inside your head, see your memories and thoughts and feel your emotions.” Kanehisa fixes him with a hard glare. Sasuke tries to shrink back but the man’s grip on his hand is firm. “And you’ll relive them. If a Yamanaka has to go in there, you’re going to see whatever they see. It’s why they’re not the most popular clan in Konoha, not even close.”

They turn a corner and a low grey building with no windows on it comes into sight. T&I.Sasuke swallows. The other Uchiha are probably already inside. Kanehisa leads him into the building, past the front desk, and down a few flights of stairs.

“Sasuke!”

“Ran?” Sasuke asks. The Uchiha, excluding Kanehisa, are gathered in front of a little concrete room. Inside it are two plastic chairs and a table. They’re light, bright, out of place against the dismal background. “Are you guys being interrogated?”

“We already went through all this,” Ran says. “We’re just here for support. Sorry for leaving you guys behind—we were checking in with them so you wouldn’t have to wait. I know the person who’ll be asking you questions, Sasuke. He can be a very scary man, but he knows how to be gentle with children. Don’t make loud noises unless you have to. Speak clearly. It’ll be okay. Don’t be put off by his appearance.”

Sasuke nods. “Are you going to be here while he’s here?” He shivers a little. Despite Ran’s reassurances of his safety, he can’t help but wonder whether he’ll really get out of it okay. He might cry. They’ll ask him questions about the—family. About his family. He doesn’t know if he’s ready to answer them. “Do you have to be here?”

“Do you want us to be here?” Jitsuko asks, gently shouldering past Yae to get closer to Sasuke. “Are you okay with us watching?”

No. No. No, he’s not okay. He doesn’t want them there to see him in case he falls apart but they’ve been so nice to him, only thinking of what he wants, of his happiness, and they could probably help if he started to break down . . . no. Sasuke shakes his head. He doesn’t trust his vocal cords to work right.

“You saw the kid,” Kensei says. “Move it on out, guys.”

“We’ll be back in a little,” Ran says, reaching out to tuck some of his hair behind his ear. Sasuke leans into her touch more than he should. “Hang in there, okay? It’ll go well if you cooperate. We’ll be waiting at the desk on the first floor. I think your interrogator will lead you there if you ask him to.”

Sasuke tries to agree with her but all that comes out is a vague grunting noise. He shuts down the urge to cringe at himself and smiles at her instead. She grins back at him and ruffles his hair, displacing the little bit of hair she’d neatened up. The other Uchiha are already gathered toward the end of the hallway. She joins them and they set off. 

They’ve gotten halfway down the hall before Eikichi says something to Yae and the sound of bickering echoes down the hall toward Sasuke. It’s a familiar sound, and it relaxes him. Their voices fade out of earshot and Sasuke leans back against the wall next to the door into the little room.

It doesn’t take more than five minutes for someone to show up. He’s tall, with broad shoulders and a wide chest. He’s wearing a trench coat on, which only adds to his size. Two long scars run diagonally over his face. Sasuke finds himself curling inward, shrinking away from the man. Ran said he knew how to be nice, but this man looks like he eats people like Sasuke for breakfast. He looks Sasuke up and down, as though sizing him up for a fight.

“I’m Morino Ibiki,” he says gruffly, after enough time has passed to make Sasuke uncomfortable. “Into the room with you. Let’s do this quickly. I don’t have time for children.” He instructs Sasuke to sit down in the chair. Morino drops himself heavily into his own. “No cuffs. You’re not a criminal. But you are going to answer my questions, aren’t you?”

Sasuke nods quickly. “Yeah.” Was that informal? “Yes.”

“Good.”

The next hour or two is a flurry of questions. Morino asks him where he was when it happened, what he saw, how many people were there, who do he think killed them, why does he know it was Itachi, if Sasuke agrees with what Itachi did in any way. He takes too long to answer some questions and Morino skips them, adding them on at the end when he’s more prepared to answer. He cries. A lot. Morino sits there stoically through his tears and at one point pulls a small pack of tissues from his trench coat and hands them over to Sasuke. 

“Don’t worry about getting it on the table. We have someone to clean all that up,” Morino says. His voice is so low it could almost count as a growl. But he doesn’t seem angry at Sasuke—this is probably just the way he talks. Or maybe he is angry. Not at Sasuke, but at something else, something beyond Sasuke’s control. “Are you ready for the next question?”

He steels himself. “I am.”

*

He finally emerges two hours later onto the ground floor of the T&I building, trailed by Morino, who’s clutching the notes he’d taken in one hand and a plastic bag full of Sasuke’s snotty tissues in the other. Sasuke doesn’t look back to see what he does with it, or where he goes; as soon as Ran turns toward him, he launches himself at her and wraps his arms around her waist. He buries his face in her shirt too, even though he’s bound to get tears or mucus on her or maybe both. He silently apologizes.

“Oh, Sasuke,” she says, returning the hug with just as much force. “Are you okay?”

He nods instinctively but pauses to consider it seriously. He doesn’t feel much of the pain or sadness he’d felt when Morino asked him questions. He’s just exhausted, wrung out. Tired. His eyelids are heavy—if he closes them, he might not have the energy to open them again.

“I’m tired,” he amends. Ran smooths his hair over his head. She seems to like messing with Sasuke’s hair, and he’s not about to stop her. The rest of the Uchiha crowd in around him like a human wall. “What are we going to do now? Are we going . . . home?”

“You said you didn’t want to go back to the—Uchiha compound,” Yae says, faltering on the last two words, “so we’ve come up with another plan. Today we’re going house shopping. Things were more complicated than anyone expected, so it’s all been delayed until now. Besides, we kind of all wanted to wait. Let you see some stuff too. You can stay with us in the inn we’ve been lodging at until we find somewhere.”

“Isn’t that expensive?” Sasuke asks, attempting to pull away from Ran and turn around. She hauls him into her lap and turns him around. Good enough.

“I’m the new Uchiha clan head,” Yae says, but they don’t look too happy about it. “I have all the funds we need. I’ll keep the clan grounds around . . . but we don’t need to use them, do we? Or, at the very least, we can find a use for them that doesn’t involve living there.”

Sasuke shakes his head emphatically. “I can really come look at houses with you?”

“Of course you can!” Eikichi butts in. Yae frowns but makes no move to stop him. “You’re part of the family too, so you should get to help decide. And, hey, you look pretty tired. How about we take you back to the inn we’ve been staying in, let you crash for a while, and then we shop?”

He has a point. Sasuke opens his mouth to tell him how good that idea is and ends up yawning instead—whoops.

“Okay,” Eikichi says, grinning. “You are obviously sleepy. Come on. Let’s get you settled down.”

Sasuke is too tired to protest when Ran stands up, shifting him so he’s clinging onto her piggy-back style. He hasn’t been carried like this in a while—Father had always said it was unbecoming. He wiggles until he’s comfortable and then, resting his head on Ran’s shoulder, he closes his eyes and sleeps.

*

The house they settle on, after much deliberation and a heated three-way debate between Kanehisa, Jitsuko, and Eikichi, is big. Not as big as the house he used to live in, but it’s enough for everyone to have their own room except Kensei and Jitsuko, who share. 

It takes a while, and a lot of tears, for Sasuke to be able to go back and get all of his stuff from his old house. The adults all have everything they need and they can buy what they don’t have. Sasuke, on the other hand, has so many things. Clothes, toys, the like—and there’s a lot of stuff in the other houses they could use in their new house, like silverware, dishes and clothes.

Right now Sasuke’s supposed to be putting away the dishes they’d brought over from his old house but he’s staring down at the spoon in his hand instead. He’s used this spoon before. It’s the same spoon but it feels different. He’s using a spoon his mother probably used, a spoon Itachi—

“Sasuke, please put that away. Did you remember to get all your clothes?” Kensei asks, hovering over him and shattering his train of thought. She has an anxious expression on her face, probably due to the stress of having to set up an entire house. She’s been in charge of the whole operation so far. Sasuke doesn’t envy her. “I went through the house after you said you were finished and picked up some more stuff, but I’m not sure I got it all. Here.”

Sasuke says, “I’ll go check,” takes the small bundle of clothes from Kensei’s hands and hands her the spoon, and scuttles off to his room. He puts his clothes away neatly, the way his mother taught him to. He opens the rest of the drawers in his room, checking to see if anything is obviously missing. Everything’s there. His clothes and shinobi wear are all accounted for and his kunai pouches, three in number, are also present. He hurries back out to the living room and gives Kensei a nod. Kanehisa isn’t there anymore—he must have gone to his room. “Yep, all of it’s there.”

“Good, good. Everyone’s out doing stuff—grocery shopping, more furniture shopping. There’s still so much we have planned. We’re gonna live together as a family, Sasuke!” Kensei says excitedly. “I love children. Taking care of children. I used to do before we came back, while I wasn’t doing missions. Kumo’s orphanage is . . . surprisingly well-maintained.” Kensei’s expression falters and saddens. “Better than anything they ever had here, I can tell you that.”

“What’s it like there?” Sasuke asks.

“Oh, you haven’t seen it?” Kensei asks in return. “Maybe that’s for the better. The conditions aren’t the greatest. Not a lot of people put money into it . . . nobody really wants to work there, either. Only I did, but I was a part-time volunteer. I wanted to do something to change it but I couldn’t before the mission happened.” She pauses, stares at something Sasuke can’t see. “Maybe I can do something now.”

“You haven’t been in a while. Maybe it’s better now.” Sasuke asks.

Kensei shakes her head. “You know what? I haven’t. Sasuke, I don’t really have high hopes that it’s changed. But I’m back for real now, so I can do something about it. Hopefully. I’m planning on visiting after we get all settled in.”

“Okay,” Sasuke says. “Can I come with you?”

Kensei makes a funny expression. “Ah, I don’t know about that, Sasuke. It can be kind of difficult there.”

“Oh,” Sasuke says, looking down at his feet. “I would’ve gone there if you guys didn’t come back, r-right?”

He feels the hot prickle of tears, tries to stop them before they come, tries to breathe deep so his nose doesn’t get clogged. It doesn’t work too well. He brings a hand up to wipe at his face and a sob works its way out of his throat at the same time.

“Sasuke?” Kensei asks gently. “Do you want to sit down?”

Sasuke nods quickly and she helps him over to a seat. They’d been having a conversation. Sasuke had ruined it. Kensei doesn’t say anything, though, just sits there and gives him the privacy he needs until he calms down a little. When he reaches for her hand, she doesn’t comment on it, only gives him a soft, supporting squeeze.

From the corner of his eye Sasuke sees someone come up and lean against the doorway into the dining room. It’s Kanehisa. He must’ve been putting away stuff in the kitchen, then. Kanehisa doesn’t interrupt. His eyes scan the room, pausing on Sasuke and Kensei for less than a second before he comes over and picks up the box of dishes Sasuke hadn’t put away and carries it back into the kitchen.

“I’m supposed to love my family,” Sasuke says, after a sufficient amount of time has passed, not quite brave enough to ask but needing this badly enough to say something. Kensei sucks in a breath, turning her head and staring Sasuke right in the eyes. He’s about to tell her never mind, that was stupid, of course I’m supposed to love my family, but when he opens his mouth to apologize she shakes her head.

“ . . . Yes,” Kensei says slowly. Sasuke sighs. “Normally. If everything was as it should be, you would love your family because family’s job is to be there for you no matter what. People who are in your family, whether they’re related by blood or not, should love you unconditionally and support you when you need it. In turn, you’ll do the same for them. However, when a family member hurts you badly, like hitting you or talking down to you all the time, they’re not giving you that love. And you don’t have to give it back.”

Sasuke struggles, again, to keep calm. He fails. He cries silently, shoulders shaking. His hand tightens around Kensei’s, tugging her toward him, and she leans into the clumsy hug, returns it too. Her arms are strong, warm, safe. Sasuke likes it. The sound of dishes being washed in the other room is routine, soothing.

“He told me to—kill him,” Sasuke says. It’s an effort to get the words out past the lump in his throat. “I don’t want to kill him. He didn’t hit me. He showed me—he showed me—they . . . ”

“Sasuke,” Kensei breathes. Her voice sounds weak too, trembles like she’s going to cry. Sasuke isn’t strong enough to look at her and comfort her like she is comforting him. One day he will be. “You don’t have to kill anyone because of this. We are your family now. We’re here to help you through it all. Even if he didn’t hit you or talk down to you like in my examples, what he showed you was undoubtedly wrong. He hurt you, and you don’t have to force yourself to love him. Are you following?”

“Yes,” Sasuke manages. She’s running a hand through his hair now, and it grounds him, the movement of her fingertips from his forehead to the very base of his neck. The dish sounds pause in the other room, for just a moment, and start back up again.

“There’s more to it than that,” Kensei says. “You can still love him. You are allowed to not know how you feel about him. It hasn’t even been a month. It can take years to sort out these feelings. I’m sorry this happened. It’s not fair, and it’s not fair that Itachi hurt you, and it’s not fair of him to demand for you to kill him. If you hate him, that’s okay. If you love him, that’s still okay. If you don’t want to avenge them, if you never want to see him again, we will support you. If you decide revenge is the right option, we will fight by your side. They were our family too. We won’t force you into anything, and we are here for you.”

The water turns off in the kitchen.

Sasuke’s eyes are already beginning to hurt from crying. He wants to lie down for days and never get up again, and his voice breaks when he talks again, but he owes this to Kensei. “Thank you.”

Kensei pulls him tighter against herself and presses a soft kiss to the top of his head. Sasuke cries harder. She loves him, he can tell, from the softness in her eyes when she looks at him and the smile that tugs at her lips when he tells her a joke. And she always knows what to say to make him feel better.

“You’re not alone.” Sasuke jumps a little when he hears Kanehisa. Kanehisa gives him an apologetic shrug and a little wave and draws up to Sasuke’s unoccupied side. His tone is gentle but stern. “We won’t let you be. Itachi killed our family. I can’t skirt around that truth or tell you it didn’t happen and I don’t think I can make you feel better with words. I can’t claim to know what you’ve been through, either, because I wasn’t there and I didn’t experience the things you did. Even so, we’ll try our absolute best to make you feel loved and understood.”

Sasuke tries to reconcile the warmth blossoming in his chest with the grief and anger rolling loud and heavy as thunder in his gut.

“Thanks,” he says quietly, again.

“Of course,” Kanehisa says. “We’re here for you.”

*

“I’m sure. I’m perfectly okay with starting the first of September,” Sasuke says. “You’re helping me study. I’ll do okay.”

“It’s only a few days away. You can tell us if you feel it’s too difficult and you want us to teach you from home for a while more,” Yae says. Sasuke smiles tentatively up at him. “Which reminds me—who’s that kid over there? Is he who I think he is?”

“Huh?” Sasuke looks up from his book. “The red-haired one? Yeah, he’s Uzumaki Naruto.”

“Called it,” Yae says. “He’s Kushina’s son, if I remember correctly. Do you know him? Mikoto is . . . was . . . good friends with Kushina.”

“You know his mom?” Sasuke asks, studiously avoiding thinking of his mother. Yae looks like they want to crawl into a hole too, so Sasuke supposes it’s not all bad. “His mom knew my mom? I’ve never seen him. Everyone calls him a freak.”

“Hmm. I didn’t think you would,” Yae says, voice touched with a tinge of sadness. “Nobody treats him right, and anyone who would is kept away from him. Hey, Uzumaki-kun!”

Sasuke starts and glares. Uzumaki is loud and annoying and always interrupts the teacher in class, and he’s also looking right at them like a hunted animal. Everyone else in the park is either off on the other side giving him a wide berth, or they’re Sasuke and Yae.

Uzumaki points to himself slowly, in a “who, me?” kind of way. His red hair falls into his face so it’s hard for Sasuke to get a read on his expression. Whoever cuts his hair is doing a horrible job of it. Sasuke feels kind of bad for him.

“Yes, you. There’s nobody else around you named Uzumaki,” Yae says. It doesn’t sound like he’s making fun of Uzumaki though, just teasing a little.

Uzumaki gets up slowly, carefully, and makes his way over across the short stretch of playground and comes to stand in front of the two of them. “Whadd’ya want? I’m busy.”

“Busy doing what?” Yae asks, raising an eyebrow. “Sitting on the swings? That doesn’t look productive.”

Uzumaki seems to swell to twice his size with anger and indignation. Sasuke would be impressed if he wasn’t so offended—who does Uzumaki think he’s yelling at? “I know you’re making fun of me! You better stop it right now because I’m gonna be Hokage and—”

Yae leans in, conspiratorial look on their face. “So many jobs, and he chooses Hokage? Well. That’s . . . ambitious.”

Hokage seems pretty up there on the list of good jobs to have, but there’s something wrong with Yae’s tone, like they don’t really think it’s all that respectable to aspire for the hat.

“—you gotta respect your future leader! When I’m Hokage I’ll show you all how awesome I can be and nobody will get to be mad at me for pranking people. So there!” Uzumaki finishes, violet eyes shining. Sasuke gives him a poisonous look and Uzumaki rounds on him. The full force of Uzumaki’s anger is a hard burden to bear. Sasuke definitely, absolutely, most assuredly does not flinch. “And don’t make fun of me, bastard!”

“He’s not making fun of you, Uzumaki-kun. Sasuke?” Yae gives Sasuke a look.

“I wasn’t making fun of you,” Sasuke says sullenly. “I was mad because you’re yelling at Yae.”

“I wouldn’t yell at him—” At this, sadness flickers onto Yae’s face for a moment before crumbling away into pleasant indifference again. “—if he didn’t make fun of me playing on the swings! Not my fault if nobody wants to play with me anyway. They’re just scared because I’m stronger.”

“Yae?” Sasuke asks hesitantly, after Yae won’t stop staring into the distance.

“Go get your book, will you? And go home while you’re at it,” they say. “I have something to discuss with the Hokage. Do you think you can you make it back by yourself?”

“Yes,” Sasuke answers. “If you aren’t home from dinner, do you want me to tell them to save some for you? Or are you going to buy something?”

“I would love to eat something from home,” Yae says, smile dancing across their face. “That would be great. Thank you, Sasuke. I’ll see you later.”

When Sasuke’s halfway out of the park he turns back to see Yae deep in a conversation with Uzumaki. The boy looks stubborn, if his crossed arms and defiant expression are anything to go by, but Yae is the picture of patience. Sasuke holds his book tighter to his chest and hurries home.

When he gets there, it’s to the smell of udon broth on the stove. Sasuke inhales deeply and lets a smile come to his face. It’s easier than it was a week ago. His face wants to smile now instead of screwing up into a frown. Sometimes, at least. He was never really a natural smiler.

“Ah, you’re home!” Ran says, voice muffled with distance.

“Hi, Ran,” Sasuke says, taking his shoes off and kicking them messily toward the neat row of footwear lined up against the wall. No doubt Eikichi will reprimand him later, but right now Eikichi isn’t home. Ran rounds the corner just as he hops up the steps into the main part of the house.

“Yae?” Jitsuko calls out.

“No, it’s just Sasuke,” Ran says. She beckons for him to follow her into the kitchen.

Jitsuko is boiling the noodles, separating them out into bowls. Sasuke is surprised to notice his bowl is the same size as everyone else, but he just has a slightly smaller portion. That’s good. Mother had always given him a smaller bowl and it’d bothered him. He tries his best to push the thought away. When Yae had mentioned Mikoto before, he hadn’t wanted to think about her. He doesn’t need to feel guilty for not thinking of her, he’s been told many times by everyone, but still. He still loves her. He just . . . 

“Sasuke! There you are. Where’s Yae?” Kensei asks, coming in from the living room.

“They wanted me to go ahead so they could talk to Uzumaki . . . kun,” Sasuke dutifully reports, grateful for the distraction. “So I had to go home. They’re probably gonna be late for dinner, so they said to save them some.”

Ran ruffles his hair and Sasuke pouts at her. “All right. I’ll put something aside. Now come on, help me get everything onto the table. The quicker we get this done, the sooner we can eat.”

*

It’s quiet. Sasuke knows everyone is in the living room talking about something they don’t want him to hear and it is driving him up the wall. Every second that passes is a second he can’t hear their conversation. The blanket is suffocating so he kicks it off, working his legs to make sure not a single scrap of it is touching him. After a few moments of deliberation he gets up and changes his long pajama pants for a pair of shorts. After he’s done that he just stands there for a little while, deciding, thinking, does he dare, before he opens his door.

Quietly, he creeps up to the living room entrance. As he draws nearer to the end of the hallway, the murmuring voices increase in volume. When he crouches down so he won’t accidentally stumble while he’s standing, the voices drop off.

They caught him. He wanted to sneak in on their conversation and they caught him. Sasuke stands as still as he can, holding his breath so they can’t even hear that, but the voices pick up again just as soon as they’d dropped off. Sasuke lets the air out of his lungs as slowly as he can.

“Why would they keep the secret for this long, though?” That’s Kanehisa. “That’s the part that gets me. I know people—civilians especially—were bound to hate him, and that’s bad, but this . . . this is on another level. They all saw the Yondaime as a hero. A hero!”

“Except for . . . ” That’s Ran, but her voice drops so low Sasuke can’t tell what she’s saying. He presses himself closer, as close as he dares, to the entrance of the living room, but he can’t tell what they’re saying.

Someone sighs.

“It was nasty. Everything about that situation except for Kushina.”

Silence.

Sasuke breathes slowly again, carefully, and holds as still as he can. Maybe they won’t be facing the hallway entrance. Can he stick his head out there? As soon as he hears the familiar rustle of clothing, Sasuke backs up a little, scratching that plan of action out. Is someone moving?

In a moment, everything stills again, and Eikichi speaks. “You know, I’m not surprised. Disappointed no one he knows, no one his parents knew, have come forward and stated their connection to him. But not surprised. Guess I should have expected it. Nobody’s better than that here. They think just because he has . . . ”

Eikichi trails off. Sasuke shudders. Uzumaki has been alone this whole time, Sasuke knows, but he’s never really thought about it before. Sasuke lost everyone, but he’s not alone. It must be really bad for Uzumaki.

“—right,” Yae says. “I can’t imagine the Yondaime planned this for him. She would’ve wanted him to be happy. She would have set plans up for him!”

“Do you think she didn’t?” Jitsuko asks acidly. “I’ve got a theory. Poor little Sandaime, age clouding his better judgement, afraid of the monsters under his bed—”

Someone gets up, judging from the scuffling footsteps he hears, and a second later Kensei’s soft voice joins in the noise. “Jitsuko.”

Jitsuko makes an aggrieved sound. “Kensei—ugh. Yes, I know. I’m sorry. It’s late enough. Let’s talk about this later.”

Sasuke’s eyes widen. Are they—yes, they are definitely moving, though Sasuke can’t tell where they’re headed. Sasuke turns around, and half-crawls, half-walks back to his room. Stealthily. He shuts the door as quietly as he can and tiptoes into his bed.

He’s awake now, even more so than he’d been before. His blood pounds through his whole body, probably a byproduct of nearly being caught eavesdropping. The room is still too hot, blanket too scratchy on his legs. Sasuke reaches over, clicks the button on the top of his box fan, and thinks.

**Author's Note:**

> i run a naruto discord server called [gama-chan party](https://discord.gg/g25p3S3)


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